


Strength Enough

by aewgliriel



Category: Star Wars Legends: Fate of the Jedi Series - Aaron Allston & Troy Denning & Christie Golden
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mention of Emotional Manipulation, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 23:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7777192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewgliriel/pseuds/aewgliriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her first council meeting as a Jedi Master, Jaina Solo and her former master, Kyp Durron, have a talk about her promotion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength Enough

She stayed seated at the table for several minutes after the council meeting dismissed. Her first council meeting as a Jedi Master. Jaina still couldn't quite believe it. When her uncle had addressed her as "Master Solo" in the temple, it had stunned her so much, she'd nearly fallen over. There hadn't been much time since to think about it, with the fighting and her medical treatment after her near burnout and her injuries, and being rushed from the medcentre here. So it was really only now hitting her.

Her brothers weren't here to see it. One of them was dead by her hand. Her parents weren't here, either.

A mug appeared in front of her, held in a masculine hand. She followed the arm up to the man holding it, as Kyp Durron said, "Credit for your thoughts, _Master_  Solo."

She smiled warmly and took the offered caf. "Thanks, _Master_  Durron."

Her former master--former a _lot_  of things, really--slid into the chair beside hers. He looked tired, but they all did these days. It reminded her of the Vong war. Kyp ran a hand through his loose, shaggy curls and then propped an elbow on the table, chin in hand as he regarded her.

"Glad to see you up and around again," he said. "When I heard you'd collapsed after fighting Abeloth, well..."

Jaina smiled wryly and flexed her formerly broken arm. "Good as new," she said. She sipped at the caf. He'd prepared it just the way she liked, black but a little sweet. He still remembered.

"I thought I was going to die," she confessed. "When I started to lose consciousness, after Abeloth fled, I thought 'This is it. Am I the record holder for shortest time as a master ever?'"

Kyp snickered. "Well, you're looking at the record holder for shortest reign as Dark Lord."

She smiled but didn't comment.

His expression sobered, dark green eyes searching her face. Then he smiled broadly. "I know I was supposed to give up pride, but I am _so_  proud of you, Jaina."

She felt her cheeks redden and she looked down at the caf. "Thanks, Kyp."

He reached over, tapped his finger on the large, sparkly stone adorning her left hand. "You tell Jag yet?"

Jaina's gaze flicked to the engagement ring. "No," she admitted. "I haven't had time."

She should have made the time, she knew, somehow. But she hadn't.

"Mm."

"I commed him from the temple, but it was before Luke promoted me."

Kyp didn't speak, just looked at her. Jaina chewed on her lip for a moment, not sure why his quiet gaze unsettled her so much right then.

"I didn't think I'd live long enough to be a Jedi Master," she said slowly. "It surprised me that he chose then to do it."

"Not me. Well, the timing, maybe. But I've been pushing him for a few years to promote you."

Her brown eyes went to his face, widened. "Really?"

"Of course. I know we don't spend as much time together as we used to-" He said it with a significant look to her ring "-but I still pay attention."

Jaina looked back at the ring, the expensive bauble Jag had presented to her months before. It still felt foreign, probably because she'd taken it off six weeks after their engagement, and only recently put it back on. It wasn't anything she would have chosen. It was better suited to the wife of a politician--like the Head of State of the Imperial Remnant, she thought wryly--than to a Jedi Master.

She set the mug down on the table and ran her fingers over the glittering gems. "How am I going to balance being on the Council with being Jag's wife?" she asked.

Kyp's brows shot up. "You're asking _me_?"

"Yeah. I know you'll be honest with me."

He snorted derisively. "I'm not the one to ask for honesty in that regard, Goddess."

She flushed again. "Kyp."

He straightened, flattening his hand on the table. Determined not to look at him directly, Jaina studied his hand, the network of faint scars that crossed the back, vanishing into his sleeve. There was a tension in him, one she hadn't seen in years.

But then, conversation between them hadn't strayed into this area in years.

"Still?" she asked quietly, and her eyes met his.

Kyp shrugged. "Lied to myself until four days ago."

Jaina didn't know what to say to that. She'd thought Kyp had moved on. He'd almost married a woman a few years ago, hadn't he? But then, she'd been so wrapped up in the mess with Alema Rar, dealing with Zekk and Jag...

"Why?"

He shrugged again, didn't answer.

A frission of something went through her. It was a feeling that she'd never quite reconciled, one she'd been feeling since he'd first flirted with her on a nameless ball of ice somewhere in the Outer Rim, so long ago.

_"We'll discuss what other propositions you might find interesting."_

The old flutter was back, and she tried viciously to squelch it, stomping on it like one would crush an insect. But it didn't work. It never had.

"Kriff, Kyp, why-"

Jaina stood, pushed away from the table. She stalked to the wall screen that showed an image of Coruscant outside. It wasn't a real window; they were too far inside the building for that.

She heard his chair push back, legs making a soft sound on the carpeted floor. She didn't need his reflection in the transparisteel to tell her where he was; she never had. Her awareness of him had always been tuned higher than anyone else, and not only because of the sheer power he carried.

"I know you don't want me," he said. "You made that clear on Borleias. So I haven't pushed. I've done what I can to stop, Jaina, but nothing's worked. I thought I'd managed until I heard you nearly died. I never intended to say anything."

She felt him approach, refused to look over.

"I came to see you while you were in the bacta, but you were unconscious. Just to see with my own eyes. I was so glad you'd made it out."

Jaina thought about Jag, so very far away. She couldn't feel him, not at this distance.

He always put creamer in her caf, she thought suddenly. She drank it anyway, because she loved him. But he always got it wrong.

He always got it wrong.

She spun around, found herself inches from Kyp. Her stomach did a somersault at the look on his face. Jaina couldn't describe it, had never seen it before. If pressed, she'd say it was something between defiance and despair.

_"We've gotta stop meeting like this."_

_"I know. It's so wrong. I just can't help myself."_

"How can you still love me, after everything I-" She stopped, realising she'd admitted the actual depth of his feelings aloud for the first time.

Jaina had always referred to it as "feelings" or "sentimentality", mostly to Jacen. She didn't discuss it with Jag. Ever. His jealousy when she was nineteen had been enough.

"I have been asking myself that nearly every day for sixteen years, Jaina," he rasped. "I'm no closer to an answer than I was then. I have every intention of never mentioning this again. But you asked for honesty."

She shook her head, more to clear it than in denial. There was nothing _to_  deny. He'd dropped his careful shielding and she could feel, just between them, his emotions. Jaina felt exactly like she had at nineteen, realising that Kyp was romantically interested in her: confusion, embarrassment, a sneaking coil of pleasure in her gut.

"I'm engaged," she heard herself say.

"I know." He sighed and took a step back.

Jaina stayed rooted, staring at him. "You make me feel things I shouldn't. I- I pushed you away because it wasn't right, we weren't- We weren't equal. It was wrong."

"I know," he repeated. Then one corner of his mouth turned up, and his dark eyes seeming to light with some internal fire. "You know, though... _Master_  Solo..."

She swallowed hard.

"We're equals _now_."

Her stomach clenched. Every hair stood on end, and her lungs suddenly didn't want to work.

All she could do was nod.

He closed the space between them that he'd only just created, and caught her left hand. He lifted it, tipped it in the light to make her ring sparkle. Her skin burned from his touch, heat shooting up her arm. She flexed her fingers, but didn't pull back.

"I should walk away," he said conversationally. "But you know what?"

Jaina shook her head, breathless, not sure whether to stay where she was or run screaming.

"I'm not going to."

He pulled the ring off her finger and dropped it on the floor. It hit the carpet with barely any noise. Jaina didn't protest. She still didn't move. She could, if she really wanted to. And yet...

Then Kyp wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, pulled her against his body with an arm around her waist, and kissed her.

She knew she shouldn't. She was engaged to someone else. But when Kyp's mouth found hers, she melted. All the tension and fear and anxiety she'd been holding for weeks just bled away, and Jaina found herself looping her arms around his neck, kissing him back.

It was Kyp that broke the kiss, drawing back to suck in a shaky breath.

"I shouldn't have-" he began, with sudden guilt, and Jaina cut him off.

"Yes, you should have," she told him. "You most definitely should have."

"What about your fiancé?" he asked.

Jaina twisted to look at the ring on the floor. "Well... It isn't the first time I've given it back."

Then she looked back at him, arms still around his neck. "I'm going to be honest. I love Jag. But... We broke up for a reason. The first time, he thought it was because of you. I denied it. When I gave the ring back before, I said it was because of the Jedi. Which is true. But it was also because of you. I just ... Never could admit it. You're my best friend. Jag should be, if I had any hope of making it work. But he's not, and he never will be."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm ... not. I made my peace with a lot of things in the temple, before Abeloth fled. One of those was that I might never marry Jag. I don't know that I can be the Sword of the Jedi and be his wife."

Kyp brushed a few stray strands of hair out of her face. "And where do I fit into this?"

"Well..." She smiled a little impishly. "We _did_  agree to be partners 'til death. I don't remember dissolving that partnership."

His eyes searched her face, suddenly uncertain. "Are you sure about this?"

Jaina's gaze fell to his chest, and she brought her hands down to place them, one on top of the other, over his heart. She bit her lip, hesitating, and then it all came out in a flood. "You still remember that I like my caf with one sweetener, no cream. Jag can never remember that. He... doesn't let me order at restaurants. He made me keep secrets I didn't want to keep. I... After Jacen, I didn't trust myself. I let him dictate to me because I didn't- But I can't live like that, if I'm honest with myself. I can't. Not anymore."

"What secrets did he make you keep?" Kyp asked.

Jaina chewed on her lip for a long moment. "The Mandalorians," she said softly. "I know that everyone knows Jag kept it from the Jedi, and that I helped him, but I didn't... tell anyone that he ... He told me that if I told you, told the Jedi, I would be betraying his confidence as his fiancée. That I... would be betraying him as his future wife."

Kyp went dangerously still. "He _what_?" he growled.

She shook her head. "At the time, I thought I deserved that. Because of Jacen. But today, I've realised I can't do that. I can't marry someone who's going to make me put him ahead of the Jedi like that and get people _killed_. Not when I'm on the Council. Not when I- Not when he's not the only option I have left."

She curled his fingers into his tunic. "I thought you didn't want me anymore," she whispered then. "That he was the only one who could want the mess I am."

"Jaina," he breathed. "I will never stop wanting you."

"I need time," she continued quickly. "I'm not going to jump from him to you. But I want to try this. You and me. When this is over."

"Okay."

That was one thing she loved about Kyp. He gave her equal say, let _her_  choose. Feeling much lighter than she had on entering the meeting, Jaina stood on her toes to kiss him again.

She'd tell Jag ... something. That could wait. She pulled away with a sigh. "Come on, Master Durron. We have a war to finish."

"I have your wing, Master Solo. As always."


End file.
